This investment will secure 2,500 jobs at Middletown Works, where the unionized workforce is represented by the International Association of Machinists.
“This is absolutely huge for the men and women who work here, and for the community,” said Shawn Coffey, union president of Local 1943. “It’s a bold statement by the company. This shows that we will be making steel for a lot longer.”
Credit: Nick Graham
Credit: Nick Graham
Middletown City Manager Paul Lolli agreed.
“The city of Middletown is proud to be chosen as the site within the Cleveland-Cliffs organization to bring clean steel manufacturing into the foreseeable future,” Lolli said. “The selection of the Middletown Works steel mill as the site of the hydrogen-ready furnace will continue Middletown’s rich steelmaking history for many generations to come.”
The plant will retire one blast furnace, install two electric melting furnaces and use hydrogen-based ironmaking technology. The project aims to eliminate 1 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions each year from the largest supplier of steel to the U.S. automotive industry, the company announced Monday.
Those changes will require 170 additional jobs, and the project will result in 1,200 building trades jobs during peak construction, according to the company.
The Middletown news came as part of the Biden administration’s announcement of $6 billion in funding for projects that will slash emissions from the industrial sector.
U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm came to Middletown, toured the Cleveland-Cliffs plant and touted the department’s investment in clean technology to benefit the environment.
“We’re making the largest single industrial decarbonization investment in American history right here,” Granholm told a room full of steelworkers at Middletown Works, according to Newsweek. “We don’t want to just make the best products in the world. We want to make sure that we make the best and cleanest products in the world.”
Cleveland-Cliffs will spend approximately $1.3 billion of its funds in the project expected to start in 2025 and conclude by 2029, the company said.
The Middletown site offers enough available space to construct the new facility without disrupting the existing processes, effectively eliminating interference risks during the construction and commissioning phase, Cleveland-Cliffs announced.
Coffey said the union has about 2,100 members, and most of them live in the area. Continuing the workforce at Cleveland-Cliffs is vital to the future of Middletown, he said.
“Money in the pocket is money in the community,” he said.
Rick Pearce, president of the Chamber serving Middletown, Monroe and Trenton, said the “economy works” when local employees support local businesses.
This is the biggest upgrade at the Middletown steel plant in 60 years. In the mid-1960s, the plant kicked off what was called Project 600 because the improvements were estimated to cost $600 million, though the final price was closer to $1 billion, said Sam Ashworth, a Middletown historian.
Now, six decades later, Cleveland-Cliffs is “leading the charge of the rebirth of manufacturing in the country,” according to Pearce.
Ashworth called the Cliffs’ announcement “really good news” because Middletown recently has seen a trend where it’s “taking one step forward, two steps back.”
When asked what this means for the city, Ashworth said: “We needed it.”
U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) said the federal partnership with Cleveland-Cliffs will ensure union steelworkers in Middletown remain “at the forefront of the global steel industry. The Cleveland-Cliffs Middletown Works plant will support growing industries in Ohio while creating good-paying jobs, and ensuring that Ohio remains a national leader in manufacturing and innovation.”
Hilary Lewis, steel director for the environmental group Industrious Labs, said the current plant is one of the region’s largest polluters and the highest emitter of particulate matter among Ohio’s industrial facilities.
She called the efforts “a crucial step toward revitalizing American manufacturing, fostering healthier communities and creating future-proof jobs.”
Industrious Labs also touted the benefits to the neighbors of Cleveland-Cliffs, including Donna Ballinger, a Middletown resident who lives less than 1,000 feet from the facility and said she breathes in what she called a “toxic soup of pollution.”
“We need better solutions to protect our health,” Ballinger said. Replacing the blast furnace with new technology, “we can bring cleaner air to my family and community, while safeguarding local jobs.”
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